There are few things that make me more catatonically depressed than the partisan shouting match we call news today. I get it, controversial partisan statements mean more viewers which means more money which in turn means more controversial partisan rejoinders. I understand the financial imperative here, I’m no news-biz-hayseed. But I have to say, it sucks and it’s dangerous. It sucks because it’s boring (blah blah HuffPo blah blah Fox News…everybody just STFU and focus on the news, please). It’s dangerous because it distorts anything a few people disagree with into an equal-time-required rancorous partisan debate.
Case in point: Today the Washington Post let Sarah Palin publish an Op-Ed in its newspaper. I’m not going to do them the courtesy of linking to it. (Here’s a good point-by-point rejoinder from the Atlantic though.) In it, Ms. Palin calls on Obama to boycott Copenhagen because of the “climategate” leaked emails. Despite plenty of explanations in non-partisan press that the emails, though embarrassing in tone, do not represent any sort of actual shift in the science around climate change – the Post was so click/viewer-hungry as to let this climategate thing roll on in its pages.
Hence our new series:
-Gates that are not -gates!
(Credit due to Josh who coined “FAILs that are not FAILs”.)
Now I already missed Kanyegate this year, but I think climategate is a good one to start with. I’m calling it, it’s not a -gate!
Why? Let me let Time magazine explain it to you. (I mean c’mon, Time is about the safest down-the-middle reporting you can get.)
4. Do the e-mails weaken the scientific case for global warming? Put it this way: when it comes to climate-science analysis from the representative of the world’s biggest oil-producing state [Saudi Arabia], it’s wise to be suspicious. In the weeks since the e-mails first became public, many climate scientists and policy experts have looked through them, and they report that the correspondence does not contradict the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming, which has been decades in the making. “The content of the stolen e-mails has no impact whatsoever on our overall understanding that human activity is driving dangerous levels of global warming,” wrote 25 leading U.S. scientists in a letter to Congress on Dec. 4. “The body of evidence that underlies our understanding of human-caused global warming remains robust.”
I’m taking a stand. It’s not about climate change and it’s not about left vs right. It’s about -gates. I’m asking my fellow Americans to carefully consider what we grant “-gate” status to. Watergate was a big honkin’ controversy that deserved the barrels of ink spilled over its progression. And it was even partisan. It was an IMPORTANT partisan scandal. But not every disagreement that happens across the screens of cable news deserves this holiest of suffixes.
I hate to break it to everyone, but I think Climategate falls short of -gate status.
Okay, rant concluded. Thanks.
PS – If you’re going to disagree in the comments, read through the TIME article first.
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December 9th, 2009 at 9:56 PM
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December 10th, 2009 at 12:38 PM
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